"He was tremendous in the second half by taking the game over, and pretty much almost winning the ball game by himself — because that's who he is, and that's what he's displayed in his career," Sloan added of Bryant, who was crowned NBA MVP earlier in the week. "But fortunately we tried to play him. We made some mistakes, but at least we kept playing hard. When we made mistakes before, we kind of felt sorry for ourselves and had a little bit of a letdown."

Not this time.

Bryant scored 10 straight Lakers point during one stretch in the third quarter.

But the Jazz responded with 12 of their own during that same span, and Utah — which was up 52-43 at the break — took a 79-72 advantage into the fourth quarter.

The Lakers continued to whittle away at that lead, and Bryant came up with the play of the game in that final period.

Caught in a trap, he threw a pass off the backboard to himself and dunked it home to make it 92-86 Jazz.

"It was unbelievable," Williams said of the amazing play. "I think I looked at Jarron Collins (who was sitting on the bench) and was like, 'Wow.' And I was in the game. Sometimes you've just got give respect when respect's due. I think he meant to do it. I know he meant to do it."

And after Lakers guard Derek Fisher missed the first but hit the second of two free throws, it was down to three at 95-92.

Boozer, however, bailed out the Jazz coming out of a timeout.

He went on a personal 6-0 run, scoring inside, shooting an 11-footer over Lamar Odom with one second left on the shot clock and knocking down a 15-footer to make it 101-92 with one minute and 57 seconds to go.

"We expected that," Bryant said of Boozer's much-anticipated performance. "We expected him to come out and have a monster game."

He did, and that combined with a botched Laker jump-ball play with Utah up by four and 41.9 seconds remaining — Luke Walton got the ball off the tip as planned, but fumbled it away — sent the Jazz into Sunday's Game 3 at EnergySolutions Arena with newfound confidence.

"We felt all along we could beat this team," Williams said, "but now we know."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com